


Between the Motion and the Act

by EudociaCovert



Series: Death's Other Kingdom [7]
Category: The Hollow (Cartoon)
Genre: Dystopia, Frantic friends, Gen, Genre Savvy Kids, Rescue Missions, Team as Family, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-29
Updated: 2018-06-29
Packaged: 2019-05-30 05:25:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15089957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EudociaCovert/pseuds/EudociaCovert
Summary: Adam's missing.





	Between the Motion and the Act

They leave Adam’s room in a rush. Mira’s grip on his hand is tight, her steps declarations of war on the hallway tile.

“Wait, what?” Kai stumbles after her. “Not that the idea of playing hooky is absolutely terrifying or anything, but what’s going on?”

Mira shoves the paper she picked up from Adam’s room at him, which Kai almost drops twice before he gets a decent grip.

“Woah! Okay, uh, Mira, I know this piece of paper probably explains everything but I’m not that good at marching and reading simultaneously, and you have a working voice, and we’ve displayed abnormal behavior on about four different security cameras now, so if you’d just slow down-“

“Sorry.” Her grip slackens and her gait stutters. “I’m sorry. My room.”

“Yeah,” Kai agrees and starts jogging beside her, surer now that he knows where they’re going. He’s trying not to freak out but… well, he doesn’t have eyes on Adam, Mira’s on the warpath, and he has an entire mental index of horrible reasons why that could be.

The door closes behind them. Mira’s blanket is in the corner and not on the bed, which is a strange thing to notice, and weirdly unsettling. Kai starts reading the note, and Mira starts talking.

 “He shouldn’t be alone in the city right now, there’s something going on, something _strange_ and I think we’re in danger, the three of us specifically?

“What, Specifically? _Why?_ ”

 “I don’t know.” Mira shakes her head and threads her fingers into her hair. “I don’t know! It’s just I was monitoring online and there was some scary stuff that might be about the glitch, and I have this bad gut feeling, and Adam’s not here, something’s going on and I don’t-”

Kai drops Adam’s note and takes two steps forward to grip her shoulders. “Hey hey hey, okay, Stop panicking. You don’t need to panic, I have that covered, I’m hogging our entire quota of daily panicking for myself because I’m better at it than you. You’re going to breathe, and then we’re going to go find Adam because he might need us. Okay?”

Mira takes a breath. Another. “Okay.”

“Awesome, that’s awesome, you’re awesome. Any idea where to start?”

Mira closes her eyes. When she opens them they’re clear. “We need to talk to who saw him last.”

“Mystery 101, nice, that would be his class. They’d be in the caf for breakfast, right?”

“Let’s go.”

They arrive breathless. The run through halls, ducking cameras and students in equal measure, did nothing for Kai’s nerves but it’s settled Mira a bit, and _that_ makes it easier to breathe. “Do we actually know any of his classmates by sight?”

Mira gives him a strained smile. “Just look for someone buff and scowly?”

Kai pinches his leg to stop a hysterical giggle. “Grid pattern then, you move in lines east to west, and I’ll do the same north the south.”

“Or you could just talk to me.”

They spin to the source of the voice, a tall boy with pale hair and furrowed brows stepping away from the wall he was leaning against. “You’re Adam’s engineers, right? Are you looking for him?”

Kai steps closer. “Do you know anything?”

The boy’s eyes shoot worriedly towards the security camera in the corner of the room, red light glaring at them.

Kai nods to himself and takes one large step forward, knocking his foot against the boy’s shoe. “Hey!” He yelps, loud and indignant, dramatically pinwheeling his arms. “Watch it!” Taking a deep breath he mentally crosses his fingers and kicks at the boy’s knee with everything he has.

He doesn’t connect, obviously. Adam’s classmate has swept his standing leg out from under him, slammed him face first into the floor and restrained him in under a second. Absolutely textbook, just like Adam would. Did once, on accident. Followed Kai around for a week begging him to throw a punch and make them even. Kai did eventually. The juice kind.

“What the _Hell_!” the classmate seethes. Mira’s yelling, he probly shound have signaled her or something first. Oops. There’s a painful grip on Kai’s arm, strain in his shoulder, knee in his back, and hot breath on his face.

“Tell me now,” Kai wheezes. “Camera can’t see.”

A ripple of shock through constraining muscles, but the other boy catches on fast. “He broke off during yesterday’s late run, right at Gurrow tunnel, that’s about a mile and a half from here,” he says lowly, and then he lets Kai up and storms off.

Mira puts down the cafeteria chair she was raising over her head and crouches next to him, hands hovering. “What’s wrong with him! Are you okay?”

“Got a location.” Kai whispers. “Think you can manage escape and transport?”

Mira blinks. Comprehension dawns. She smirks. “I’ve got some ideas.”

\--

Kai never thought he would ride a compromised Academy Surveillance Drone into the City, nor did he ever have a desire to. Honestly, he isn’t the biggest fan of leaving the Academy period; not because he likes it there, but because it’s familiar. No matter where he is on campus there’s a white ceiling eight feet above. He knows where he is, what to do. When he’s clinging to a stolen drone with Mira, eternities of pink tinged emptiness overhead, there’s none of that certainty.

He’s not used to seeing the sky outside of The Hollow.

“This is just the first step,” Mira calls to him over the rushing of air, “We’re going to have to figure out where he went from the tunnel.”

Oh thank goodness, a task. “I bet I can repurpose the infrared on this thing, use that to scan for him.”

“In a city though?”

Yeah, that’s a worry. “Got any better ideas?”

“Not really.”

“Great. I’m going to be tugging at some wires, keep me steady?”

Mira grabs a handful of the back of his shirt and braces herself. Leaning his weight slightly on his friend, Kai pries a panel open and lets himself get lost in reconfiguring the machine.

\--

The sun is fully risen when they reach the tunnel, the street empty. Kai has finished his work and run a small test to make sure the probe isn’t transmitting to the Academy, switching the infrared on and accepting Mira’s help sliding off the robot’s metal back. “I feel like there should be some clue around here to point us in the right direction. A note in a box with a combination lock. Flashing lights in the sky.”

“This isn’t a game, Kai,” Mira snipes, voice sharp. “Things aren’t that simple in the real world.”

“It feels like a game,” Kai mumbles to himself as he walks, scanning the branching streets. “So, first order of business: under no circumstances are we splitting up the party, that’s nonnegotiable-”

The drone starts to beep, and they both freeze.

Mira shoots him a wide-eyed look. “Not yet, it’s going to draw attention! Turn that off!” she hisses as he scrambles back towards the drone.

“Sorry sorry sorry, just let me-” flip a panel up, find and yank a wire, and…

The beeping stops.

They can hear footsteps.

Somehow it didn’t occur to Kai that two school age kids standing around an obviously Academy drone during school hours is mightily suspicious until this exact moment. “We got to hide it, hurry-”

“No time!” Mira runs for the side of the road, and Kai follows. They tumble into a patch of weeds, throwing themselves flat. It looked like more cover from the street than from inside Kai notes dizzily, clamping a shaking hand over his mouth and holding his breath.

The figure that brakes from the shadow is thin and hunched, arms curled around it’s middle and wet hair plastered over it’s face. It breathes in a rasp.

“Adam,” Mira breathes, and then she’s out and running.

It takes Kai another second to recognize his friend before he’s running too. Their wayward leader stumbles back when they approach, his eyes glassy and drifting and his stance shaky and tired. “Mira? Kai? What, what are you-”

“We got you,” Mira sooths, stepping closer. Adam scrutinizes her face for a moment before nodding and slumping forward. Kai cries out and Mira catches him.

She pulls him close, wrinkling her nose at the smell of river water, but hands firm. She looks at Kai, who’s still reeling from going from an anxious mess to a relieves mess.

“I’m going to kick his ass,” she decides with absolute conviction.

\--

They huddle in Kai’s room because he’s the least likely to complain about it getting stunk up. Adam is bundled in blankets, shaking. Kai’s crashing hard. The reality that he’s missed his morning quiz and that next week everyone is going to know who the overachiever is buzzes in the back of his mind. He tries to shove it down, to keep his mind on the fact that Adam’s safe, but it keeps reappearing. Mira’s staring Adam down, stern faced, arms crossed.

Feeling the tension in the room Adam cringes. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m really glad you’re not dead,” Mira says frostily. “and I’d love an explanation on what happened out there, and why we weren’t invited.”

Adam nods and starts. “I met with the Weird Guy. He sent a message about knowing who was behind the glitch. It’s something we have to know to pick a safe gamemaster next time, so I went.”

“He asked for you alone?”

“No.”

Mira’s fists clench over her knees. “So, you deliberately kept it from us.”

Kai shifts at that, uncomfortable. “Mira…”

“You can’t tell me you’re on his side with this.”

“What is this Monopoly, no one’s on opposite sides here! I just think you’re being a bit unfair.”

Mira shoots him a glare and Adam vigorously shakes his head at him.

“How do you think I’m being unfair exactly,” Mira asks, a riptide under her voice.

Kai swallows hard and stands firm. “We all hide things from each other, because we worry. You can’t look me in the eyes and deny that.”

It hits home, but Mira isn’t ready to let go. “This time it got him hurt.”

“But anytime we do that it could,” Kai argues. “He couldn’t know that this time that would happen. If I’ve learned anything from the Hollow-”

“The Hollow isn’t _Real_ Kai.”

“We pretend like it isn’t,” he fires back. “But to us, it is. We _live_ it.”

“Mira’s right,” Adam sighs. “Thanks for backing me up man, but this time I should have told you. This is a bigger threat than normal, I didn’t treat it like such. I should have told you exactly where and when I was going.”

Mira frowns hard. “You should have taken us _with_ you.”

Adam shakes his head. The shivering’s dying down some. “No, I shouldn’t have. I don’t think that man was pulling the strings. There’s something bigger than him going on. If we’d all been there I doubt it would have ended with me simply getting pushed off a bridge.”

Kai springs to attention, his heart leaping. “Excuse me, you were _thrown off a bridge_!? I change my mind I’m on Mira’s side.”

Adam smirks, a flash of inappropriately times humor. “I thought there were no sides.”

“What _exactly_ happened out there, Adam?” Mira asks. She’s shaking too, good, everyone’s shaking, it’s a party.

“I’m not sure. Someone trying to take us off the chessboard, I guess?”

Kai raises his eyebrows. “Someone? Why exactly aren’t we blaming Weird Guy, who apparently pushes people off bridges?”

Adam sticks his fisted hand out of his blanket cocoon and opens it. In his palm are a memory drive and a small rebreather, something Kai’s never seen outside of the Hollow.

“Gamemasters aren’t nice,” he says. “They’re supposed to keep the game entertaining, and entertaining doesn’t mean nice. That said, they’re also there to keep the players safe. I think something bigger than we know is going on and he did what he could to keep us in play.”

“Real life isn’t a game,” Mira whispers.

Adam sighs. He looks like he ages ten years in moments like this. “This time it might be.”

Kai’s eyes are still glued to Adam’s palm. “What’s on the flash?”

“I was told it’s a copy of the corrupted version of the game. Do you think you can take a crack at it, see what you can find?”

Kai’s fingertips feel burning against Adam’s cold palm. He plucks the drive up, peers at it closely. Waterproof casing.

Mira breathes heavily. It comes out shaky. “Okay. Things have changed. There’s a new threat and we can’t keep going the way we have been. We need to be united on this.”

“This isn’t a game,” Adam says, looking between them, “But Kai’s right, we’ve lived through them, a lot of them. All those decisions we kick ourselves for after? We’re not doing any of that.”

“No fronting,” Kai says.

“No secrets,” Mira adds.

“No going off alone,” Adam finishes. “We don’t know what’s going on now, but that’s happened to us before. The important thing is staying together and staying alive. To the very end.”

Mira nods, biting her lip. "To the very end."

 Kai curls his fingers around the drive and nods when Adam looks at him. There’s fear in his belly, but he isn't worried.

If there’s anything he’s good at, it’s pushing through the fear.


End file.
